


Pockets

by lyriumlovesong



Series: The Rabbit and The Lion [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: BFFs, Banter, Dorian is a Good Friend, Dragon Age Quest: Happier Times, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Inquisitor & Dorian Pavus Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, POV Dorian Pavus, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7530133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyriumlovesong/pseuds/lyriumlovesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Freya and Cullen get back from Honnleath, Dorian wants details. When he finds out what happened, he's kind of sorry he asked. But only kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pockets

It was late morning in Skyhold, and the crisp breeze that tickled his carefully-curled mustache told Dorian that autumn’s arrival was imminent. Being tucked away in the Frostbacks meant that summer was being shooed away rather sooner than he was used to, but he found that he didn’t mind the cooler weather. Compared to hot, dry Tevinter, it made for a nice change.

He strolled through the garden, heading toward a thin figure occupying the round table where the residents often played chess. Freya Lavellan was seated in one of the wooden chairs, carefully stitching something.

“Inquisitor,” he asked, raising an eyebrow, “have you taken up the art of embroidery? Are we to have quaint little samplers hanging about the keep now? _‘Maker Bless This House’_ and that sort of thing?”

Freya snorted.

“Over my dead, heathen body,” she told him, pulling a strand of white thread through a large piece of linen. As Dorian got closer, he realized it was one of her tunics, and that there was a whole heap of them in her lap. She also had a small pile of white fabric rectangles she’d cut out, which were laying on the table in front of her. She was in the process of attaching one of them to the shirt.

“You do realize you’re sewing that pocket on the wrong side of your tunic, right?” he asked.

“No, I’m not.”

Pause.

“...That shirt is _inside out_ , dear.”

“Yes, it is.”  
  
Dorian decided against arguing the point further with Freya, having very recently seen her disembowel a man. Not that he expected her to gut him over a pocket, but still. She did have a pair of shears to hand, and those weren’t really so different from a dagger, were they? He sat in the chair opposite her and folded his hands over his chest.

“You’re looking well-rested,” he said, changing the subject. “I take it the overnight trip to Ferelden went well?”  
  
“It was nice. Relaxing.”

“Oh. Relaxing.” He nodded with a look of mock seriousness. “And did you and our tall, shiny friend do a lot of... _relaxing_?”

He leaned heavily on the last word, and Freya looked up to see a devilish smirk on his face.  
  
“A gentleman never asks, and a lady never tells,” she replied in a sing-song voice.

“Fortunately, neither of those descriptions fits either of the two of us.”

Freya adopted a dramatic look of deepest insult, clutching a hand to her chest. “You _wound_ me, Dorian.”

He grinned at her and crossed his ankle over his knee, leaning back.

“But really, how did it go? Did he show you a sheep farm or... ?”  
  
She laughed at this, rolling her eyes.

“Not everyone in Ferelden is a sheep farmer, despite the impression you’ve understandably taken away from our time in the Hinterlands. We went to a lake.”  
  
“That was his big surprise? A lake? He didn’t make you go _fishing_ , did he?” asked the mage, wrinkling his nose.

“No,” she said, pausing to untangle the length of thread. “We just… talked. About his family and growing up in Honnleath, mostly. He just wanted to take me away from Inquisition duties for a day. And he gave me something of his. You know, a little token I can take with me when we’re apart. It was rather sweet, actually.”

There was a brief moment’s silence.

“Inquisitor, have you ever eaten a candied apple?”

“What?” Freya asked, looking up with an expression of confusion at the non-sequitur.

“A candied apple. It is what it sounds like.”

“I can’t say I have,” she answered, wondering where this was going. “Why?”

“They’re really kind of awful. Glue your mouth shut when you bite into them, rot your teeth. But they’re so sugary and indulgent you can’t help but also sort of _enjoy_ it, at the same time. And whenever someone offers you one, you tell yourself you won’t. But then you see it, all smooth and shiny, and you just say to yourself ‘ _Oh, go on then_ ,’ and before you know it, you’re digging toffee out of your teeth and regretting everything.”

Freya looked at him blankly.

“And?”

“Your relationship with the Commander is like a living, breathing candied apple.”

Freya looked surprised for a beat, then tipped her head back and laughed.

Dorian smiled at this reaction. He nursed a growing fondness for the elf. After all, she’d stood by him when his father had confronted him in Redcliffe, taken his side when Mother Giselle had accused them both of “improprieties,” and was always somehow keenly aware of when she needed to usher the rest of their party away on some sort of small, busywork-type mission so he and Bull could spend a little time alone on the road.

It didn’t hurt that she was also just good company.

“I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult,” she told him, smiling broadly as she returned to her stitching.

“Yes.”

She chuckled again.

“So, after the lake…?” he asked.  
  
“We went back to the inn where we were staying for the night and… _relaxed_ a bit.”

“Which _parts_ of you _relaxed_ , specifically?”

“I thought you didn’t like fishing?” she asked with a smirk. Realizing defeat, Dorian scoffed and looked up at the yellowing leaves of the garden trees.  She cleared her throat. “We did not engage in sexual congress, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The mage's eyes widened at this, and his gaze snapped back to her.

“ _Still_?” he asked. “ _Fasta vass_... you have the patience of the Divine.”

“And the same sex life.”

It was Dorian’s turn to laugh at this remark.

“That’s sadly true. But I’m sure it will come soon enough.”

They both looked at each other at the same time, realizing his accidental double entendre, and they erupted into a fit of giggles together.

Freya looked happily across the table at her friend, marveling at the strangeness of the way the war was changing the world. A Dalish elf and a Tevinter mage, fast becoming thick as thieves. She wondered what her mother would think.  
  
She finished stitching and snipped the thread, admiring her own handywork. Then, lovingly taking a shining silver coin out of a pouch at her belt, she held it up against the rectangle of fabric, testing the fit. It was at this point that Dorian realized why she was sewing little pockets to the inside chest area of what appeared to be _every single tunic_ she owned. Truth be told, it was just about the most adorable thing he thought he’d ever seen her do.  
  
“Candied apples,” he mused, shaking his head with a smirk.


End file.
